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General : ArenaNet's Jeff Strain Unveils "Undead Labs" Studio
Posted Nov 23, 2009 by Michael Bitton
Jeff Strain, the former co-founder of ArenaNet who parted ways with NCsoft this August has pulled back the curtain on his newest project in an announcement made today. Strain has formed the Seattle based game development studio "Undead Labs" with the intention to develop a zombie themed console MMOG.
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An excerpt from the announcement is available below:
Undead Labs’ sole focus will be to create the definitive massively multiplayer online zombie game (MMOZ) for console gamers. Nothing screams funny quite like wading into a group of rotting zombies with a lawn chair and a box of sharpened HB pencils, and nothing says fun quite like doing it with your friends, whether online or on your sofa. Undead Labs is committed to bringing to life an MMO loaded with action, humour and, of course, a lot of zombies, because the world doesn’t any need more dragons.
Strain left NCsoft last summer to build a creative studio around the most talented – and zombie-loving – developers in the industry, and to pioneer a new development model that will create a new breed of MMO built from the ground up for console gamers.
“Every time I see a good zombie movie with friends, we spend days debating our strategies for surviving the zombie apocalypse,” said Strain. “The police station or the supermarket? Garden rake or staple gun? Bach or The White Stripes? I’m a game developer, so I’d probably be useless for anything other than ghoul bait, but I’m excited to have the opportunity to build an MMOZ that lets us put those strategies to the test and find out for sure.”
Add MMOZ to your long list of gaming acronyms, guys.
Eurogamer scored an interview with Jeff Strain to discuss today's announcement, read it here.
The official Undead Labs site can be viewed here.
I will play it on PC !!!
Oh god this reeks of awesome... Pure awesome.
Just about everything he has worked on has been great. Looking forward to hearing more on the game.
BRAINZ?
BRAINZ!
BRAINZ!!!!
Console only?
*shuffles off*
Looking forward to seeing what they do.
The rule have been: If Strain makes it I buy it since the first Diablo game.
And I have wondered why no-one made a zombie MMO before, well I will gladly buy it on preorder, Strain is the best programmer (by far) in the MMO genre and zombies are always fun :D
This sounds so awesome been waiting to see someone make an announcement like this. Undead Labs you got my eyes and ears and hope you do a "damned" good job on this game.
I am a pretty negative person on these forums, but all i have to say to this news is...........
Fucking awesome
Amazing. But only consoles ?
Thats crap
I've loved everything he's worked on. This will no doubt be equally as awesome.
"Strain left NCsoft last summer to build a creative studio around the most talented – and zombie-loving – developers in the industry, and to pioneer a new development model that will create a new breed of MMO built from the ground up for console gamers."
I've got a feeling he was "suggested" to leave for other reasons.
Apart from that I'm unsure if I can take another zombie movie/game/(audio) book/comic/song... We'll see.
Why would they suggest he leave? He had a huge hand in the original World of Warcraft and pioneered the creation of Guild Wars - two extremely successful games.
Only for consoles? Boo Urns!
roll eyes
LOL, It sure reeks of something! ;-p